Greetings.
A couple posts on the forums and some grumblings from my significant other made me come up with an idea.

There truly should be a white list for the E2 (English only) server, for users who:

• are studying abroad/living overseas in communities that do not speak English as a native language
• are fluent/able to speak the language due to studying in school
• studied in an English-speaking country and moved back home
  

Example one: I've, in the past, considered a move to Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; to study at Universidade do RGS and teach English. I'm CLEARLY able to speak English, yet if I wanted to play on E2 I would be unable to speak due to my Brazilian IP.

Example two: my significant other, who resides in Buenos Aires, is unable to speak on E2 despite being perfectly fluent in English. He's been studying/speaking English for thirteen years now (aka most of his life) and even graduated from an American high school.

How would we go about this though, Haru?!
The easiest method I can think of is a form attached to the website that allows users to demonstrate their fluency in English by introducing themself -- their name, hobbies, how they like to play the game, et cetera. Example as follows:

Hi! My name is Haruhitastic, and I'd like to apply to be whitelisted to speak on the E2 server.
I'm twenty-two and have been speaking English all of my life, and hopefully it's obvious by my grammar and sentence structure. ^^
I like to write, take photographs of the sky when it's stormy, and go for walks.
When I'm in game, I enjoy spending my time talking to my friends, lurking the cafe, and shamaning. I also enjoy playing in defilante, but it's almost never full. :(

I'm really unsure what else to say at this point, but I hope it's demonstrated my English ability enough!

You could probably add more fields for them to fill out, a la a staff application, but could be automatically posted to a board that's staff only, and from there mods can determine if the user is fluent enough to pass. Since a lot of staff lurk the forums anyway for their own needs, it wouldn't take much out of their day; especially arbs, who don't really have much to do outside of chat moderation and removal of inappropriate topics/posts from the cafe.

What about shared accounts who have English-speakers apply?
The moment a user is caught speaking a language other than English on E2, white list access should be revoked and never granted again. The only flaw in this would be users who are just casually joking about speaking other languages, but that's where contextual moderation should be attempted. There's a stark difference between a ten minute conversation in French, and a single passing "oui oui mon cherie."

Supports? No supports?
I'd like to hear all your concerns and comments about this. Hopefully we can come to a happy medium!
I'd also quite prefer if you give a reason as to why you don't support this suggestion, rather than a simple "no support."

List of supporters


No supporters


Note; this could apply for all communities that have IP chat limitations

I support the idea. As the person in example 2, I'm from Argentina, but I've been studying english most of my life and im quite fluent at it, having graduated from an American high school. Being friends with a lot of people that play E2, I would love to be able to speak there.

This is one of those ideas that go in the "would be nice to have" category. It'd be great for a select few people that are being the victim of the current system whereas the rest of the player base would hardly know the difference. As such it's likely that projects that affect everyone will get more priority.

I definitely support the idea though, I'd love to be able to help players with these issues.

I /support

/Support. I know some friends that aren't in the United States or Great Britain but they know fluent English, they want to chat in E2 server but can't.

throws all my support

/Support

The only thing I am worried about is who is going to handle this white list if the feature gets implemented: the volunteer staff or the admins themselves?
It could be a problem if the admins are going to be in charge of it, since they already have so much workload on their shoulders.

I really like the idea overall and I think it could be applied to other communities as well, as there are many Romanians who live in Spain for instance and complain that they are unable to speak on RO despite being native speakers of the language.

tarmacadam a dit :

The only thing I am worried about is who is going to handle this white list if the feature gets implemented: the volunteer staff or the admins themselves?
It could be a problem if the admins are going to be in charge of it, since they already have so much workload on their shoulders.

I plainly explained it:

a dit :

You could probably add more fields for them to fill out, a la a staff application, but could be automatically posted to a board that's staff only, and from there mods can determine if the user is fluent enough to pass. Since a lot of staff lurk the forums anyway for their own needs, it wouldn't take much out of their day; especially arbs, who don't really have much to do outside of chat moderation and removal of inappropriate topics/posts from the cafe.

Oh sorry, I guess I'm blind :p

as usual haru
this is great~
i really like the idea, too.
support!

/Support
I think it's a nice idea

oui oui mon cherie
support :^)

throws ten gallons of support

I like this but seems not possibile :(

this is flawless yes pleaseee
aka support

Ifrancesco a dit :

I like this but seems not possibile :(

Can you specifically outline how it wouldn't be?
Mods process mod apps through the same channels. Why wouldn't this be possible?

i support. but won't people just be copying and pasting other forms and then adding their name to it?

/support
Though I am not sure of the automatic ban if you speak too much foreign language. The game does not have any translation application which can identify which language you are using, that including English.
If there's something like this, I would have pictures the admins doing this to auto ban spammers that spam random letters.
I did look around the jnternet about a translator in a game but so far no game company ever did it so I doubts that that system is possible

Juliantwofan a dit :

i support. but won't people just be copying and pasting other forms and then adding their name to it?

Are you trying to imply mods aren't smart enough to spot that? :p

Fierying a dit :

/support
Though I am not sure of the automatic ban if you speak too much foreign language. The game does not have any translation application which can identify which language you are using, that including English.
If there's something like this, I would have pictures the admins doing this to auto ban spammers that spam random letters.
I did look around the jnternet about a translator in a game but so far no game company ever did it so I doubts that that system is possible

No no, moderators would ban, not an automatic ban. x) Sorry if that wasn't clear.